


In The Headlines

by lila (lilahawk)



Category: Ant-Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actors, Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic Violence, F/M, Miscarriage, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:19:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27354859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilahawk/pseuds/lila
Summary: She was tired. Tired of being crushed and crucified. She was also tired of the drama that surrounded her created also by the media.She had enough of it.
Relationships: Scott Lang/Hope Van Dyne
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	In The Headlines

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AnneBridge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnneBridge/gifts).



“You look a little terrified.”

Hope laughed at her son’s statement. _A little terrified_ didn’t describe what she was feeling. Overwhelmed? Maybe, anxious? Definitely but terrified was not one of them.

It has been a long time coming but she owned this to herself more than anything. She wasn’t fearful of the consequences of her current decision – because there would be a lot to face –, the media already took enough from her and she was tired. Tired of being crushed, crucified and she was also tired of the drama that surrounded her created also by the media.

She had enough of it.

“I’m not,” she bit her lip. “I’m relieved that I’m finally being able to talk about it. I’m just sad that I had to wait for him to die to create enough courage to say it open in the wild what your father did to me.”

“He is not my father.”

She sighs and nodded her head.

“Yes, he is. Even though both of us don’t like it, he is.”

Even if Emory could discuss with her all day about the subject, he wouldn’t. Well, at least not today of all days. He couldn’t do that to her, it would be too much of an inconvenience to both of them. He loved his mom too much for his own sake.

“Are you sure you want to do this? You don’t have to, you know. We can pull this thing off right now.”

Hope smiled at Emory and sighed. It was too late to stop now, she refused to be a coward.

“I know. But I can’t go back, they need to know everything. I won’t let the media take my history from me again. I won’t allow it.”

He frowned his eyebrows and sighed.

“Okay then. But if you need to take a break at any moment, just let us know and we’ll take you out.”

She smiled when he hugged her tight.

Hope was so grateful for her son. Emory always supported and encourage her to make her dreams come true and today wouldn’t be different.

“Have you heard anything about him?”

She saw her son lost words for the first time in a while.

Of course, he didn’t. Scott was always the better one at just shutting himself down from everyone.

“Mom…”

“Of course you didn’t, that was a stupid question.”

She nodded her head and took deep breaths.

“I’ll try to talk to him"

Just as he finished his sentence someone showed up at the door saying that her name was being called to go to the stage. Reluctantly they broke apart and she walked towards the stage where Ava Starr was waiting for her.

Ava has been one of her closest friends for the past 20 years. They met at the golden globe where Hope was nominated for and Ava was presenting. It all made sense that she was the one who Hope trusted enough to bring this up for everyone to see.

“Hi, I missed having you here.”

Ava said as soon as both sit.

“Me too. Everyone here is just so nice to me. I absolutely adore coming in here.”

“You’re going to release a book tomorrow. But before that, you called me last week explaining why and you send me a copy of the book. I read it and when I finished I cried my eyes out because half of the things you said there you didn’t tell me about. We have been best friends for a long time and I didn’t realize that you were going through all of that and I am so sorry, I should have noticed that something was off.”

Hope nodded, held her hand, and smiled.

“No. No, it’s not your fault. Look, when you go through something so brutal as domestic violence it's devastating not just emotionally but, also, physically. It changes you inside out, you basically become another totally different person because you have to learn how to lie and how to make people believe in that lie.”

“How the abuse started?”

“It started after my abuser and I got married. I was barely sixteen years old and he was twenty. But not right away, you know, it never starts right away. Grabbing my arm, yelling, and then the first slap. After he hit me for the first time he apologized, held me and said that it was never going to happen again and I believed him because I loved him. After I got pregnant at seventeen and gave birth, things started getting out of control. On some occasions, he wouldn’t hurt my face, he punched and kicked my stomach. One certain night, we went out for dinner and according to him I was flirting with the waiter and when we arrived home, he dragged me to the bathroom and punched my face three times and broke my nose. I had to be taken to the hospital to have emergency surgery.”

“I remember that,” Ava interrupted.

“Yeah. The doctor suspected so he separated me from him and asked me what was going on and if it was domestic violence and I said no, that I had just fallen in the bathroom and hit my face on the bathtub” Hope nodded. “It was not good. But I stayed because he was good at the beginning and I thought that I could make him remember how good the beginning was for us and try to get that back. I learned that locking myself in rooms never worked because he would always break every furniture in the house and then the door. On some occasions, he put me in a corner of a room and tie my hands and feet and beat me repeatedly. He was a horrible person.”

“When you started working again, what happened?”

Hope took a deep breath and bit her lip, hesitating. She never talked about it so openly about this subject to anyone except Scott.

“I avoided scripts that had nudity on it and too much kissing because I knew what it would happen if I took them. He did not like it when I was out with my co-stars and at that point, I didn’t have friends that weren’t his friends. From my point of view, I didn’t have anyone that I could trust to talk about it. Trying to avoid making him angry almost cost me my career.”

“But you got cast in some movies, right?”

“Yes," Hope smiled. “Emory was young and it was when I had to move to Atlanta to shoot, so he came with me, and my abuser had to stay in New York for a project and I filled for divorce weeks after I moved.” Hope took a deep breath before continuing. “It was terrifying for a while. Every night when I listened to a noise outside I thought ‘this is it, he is here and he is going to kill me this time' and spend the whole night or if not days awake until I blacked out because I was so exhausted from the fear. It was not good, but it was heaven compared to what it used to be. And then I started to actually have friends and things got even better but the nightmares and insomnia were still there.”

“That was when you started to get close to Scott Lang, right?” Ava said with a suggestive tone and a smile.

“Yes, we started to go out together and the media was all over us because they didn’t know about the divorce yet so they thought that I was cheating on my abuser.”

“Why did you let them believe that?”

“It was easier,” she didn’t even hesitate to respond. “You know, I was embarrassed that I let the abuse last as long as it did, I guess. So, I think that it was easier to let them believe that I was cheating rather than knowing that I was getting beaten up nearly every day by him.”

“How was it for you to start dating someone after that?”

“Like breathing after holding your breath for a long time. It was… Refreshing, to have someone who actually cared and wanted to know how my day was and complimented me all the time. He was loving, and he loved Emory like he was his, that meant the world to me.”

“But It wasn’t easy, right? You both had some rough patches?” Ava asked, raising her eyebrows.

“We did."

* * *

_“We need to talk.”_

_It always started like this. In a text, a call and he was plain and simple about what is going on._

_After putting Emory to sleep she sit on the couch in the living room for a few hours, until he arrived with a little cut on his lip._

_“What happened?” she was worried._

_She already knew what happened to him. Her ex-husband._

_“Nothing.”_

_“I’m gonna get the first aid kit.”_

_“Hope…”_

_“Don’t,” she interrupted. “I’m sorry for Darren. And if you don’t want me, it’s okay for you to say it. I won’t be mad.”_

_She left him in the living room and went to the bathroom. When she took too long to come back he went after her and found her sitting on the toilet and crying with the first aid kit on the bathroom sink._

_He leaned against the wall and stared at her for a moment before getting closer._

_“This isn’t about Darren or you or much less about Emory. It’s about me. It’s me, Hope.” He sat on the floor in front of her and put his hands on her face and sigh. “I need time, for now. There’s too much going on around me and I need time and space to think. I have this feeling that I might have a nervous breakdown at any moment and I can’t handle it by myself… I need help.”_

_Hope took a deep and looked around before looking at him._

_“Am I… a burden to you? Me and my emotional baggage and Emory? It’s that why are you doing this…”_

_“No,” he said, “this has been building up for a really long time now and I can’t take it anymore. I need help, Hope. I'm not happy with myself right now and that has nothing to do with you or Emory, it’s just me.”_

_She nodded accepting it but didn’t make it easier._

_She sat on his lap for hours while he talked and she held him tight until she fell asleep listening to everything he had to talk, she barely felt when he took her to bed to sleep. She woke up at exactly 3:43 am and couldn’t just go back to sleep._

_Her fingers touched his face softly so she couldn’t bring herself to bother him now, while he slept so soundly on her bed, this would probably be the last time she would be seeing him for a long time. She should have walked away from him before any of them could have this romantic involvement, doing it now it’s just painful._

_But it was what he wanted, she should do it because he asked, because he needed it. But it wouldn’t hurt less in any way, she loved him too much now._

_She felt his pulling her even closer to him and his eyes stared at her for seconds before he said something._

_“Can’t sleep?” he said as soon as she sat down on the sofa._

_She smiled at him and looked at his face. She would never get tired of that face._

_“I’m okay, go back to sleep. We still have to pack your bags in the morning so I can drive you.”_

_“You’re taking me?”_

_“Yes. Me and Emory coming to say ‘see you soon'."_

_“Don’t cry, I’ll be back. I promise I will.” And so she believes him._

_They barely make it to the bed._

_After it happened she’s out of breath and her arms ache from the grip she kept on his shoulder and holding his hand in place on her hair._

_The back of her thighs might be red from the tight grip he used, he still was pinning her against the bed with all the weight of his enthusiasm and excitement. Her legs still tightly wrapped around his waist and one of his hands under the shirt (his shirt) that she uses to sleep, grabbing her ass and underwear was somewhere around the bedroom. It was so hot that she thought that she was going to combust. Everything was so hard, quick and mindblowing while he crushed her body against the bed, his hands everywhere, his lips on her collarbone and her jaw._

_“Have you been working out?” she must have said at one point but she couldn’t place it. She remembered his laughing against her neck like he couldn’t help himself. And soon after they shift and she was on top of him, moving up and down as if her life depended on it while she felt the warmth of his breath against the shell of her ear._

_“I know they don’t allow phones in there. Will you write to me?” she asked after moving to her side of the bed._

_He didn’t answer her. He had already fallen asleep._

_She didn’t sleep, just the thought of closing her eyes and missing a single second by his side was too much for her to handle. She spent to whole night walking back and forth around their room packing his bags and when the morning came she didn’t cry._

* * *

“I remember that in that morning I kept saying to myself that I couldn’t cry, no matter what. Because it wouldn’t be fair if I made him feel guilty for what I was going through at that moment. He always said I had a beautiful smile, so I kept smiling at him at every opportunity I had and giggling at every silly joke he made. I remember that after I left in that place and I only got to drove back a few miles before…” her voice failed and she stopped for like a second before continuing. “Before I had pull over on the side of the road because if I kept driving I would for sure crashed on to something. “

“How was life while he was away?”

Hope took a deep breath and slightly, biting her upper lip.

“I’m not gonna lie and say that it was smooth because it wasn’t. There were paparazzi everywhere my son and I went and news outlets and we had a stalker for a while during that time, which was really scary. And everything you can think of happened during that time and it was so hard because Scott always was there for me in a way nobody else was or I’d let them be, but I was so incredibly proud of him to be able to be sincere about what was going on and being able to take his time to get better. He was always able to do that and I felt like I couldn’t because I had a little kid and I didn’t trust anyone with him much less his own father so I did what I could. I went to therapy twice a week, did yoga, reduced work and stress. I was a stay-at-home mom for a while during that and no matter what happened people would always be after us looking, taking pictures and making up stories, and I was just _so_ tired of it. But everything worked out because I had my son with me, being with him at that moment was what kept me sane and gave me the purpose of being the best mom I could be.”

“That was good, you looked so happy back then, especially when Scott left rehab.”

“Yeah, that was…” her mouth went dry and her stomach made a nasty twist inside of her. “Can we have a break?”

She asked out of the blue and Ava’s stood still on her chair, probably a little speechless and for what it like hours she nodded, and the lights diminished and the crew behind the cameras started come up to the stage to regulate almost everything and before Ava could get closer, Hope’s assistant pushed her aside and started to talk to her.

“This next part is going to get a whole lot harder,” Hope mumbled to herself and felt her son’s hand on her shoulder.

“Do you need a glass of water?” 

“Not really, maybe later.” She answered right away.

“You froze,” she turned and looked confused at Emory, “when she mentioned the first time Scott left for rehab. You froze, for like a few moments and you asked for a break, I understand that it’s hard for to…”

“To talk about it, yeah.” She interrupted. “But I have to, Emory. Or else I won’t ever talk about. I need this. I can’t have her stuck in my throat anymore, I need to talk in order to make myself better.”

“Last time you said her name, you stayed in your room for four days. Four days, mom."

“ _Everyone back on your marks, we will be back in a minute”_

A voice echoed through the whole studio and she walked right past her son and sat down on the comfy couch in front of Ava.

“And we’re back with Hope Van Dyne, and she’s talking to us about her book which is a biography where she tells us everything behind what the media has told us about her and made up about her,” Ava said staring at a camera. “I’d like to talk to you about this one chapter on the book that you named Faith. All the other chapters were enumerated but this one had a name and it made me so curious. I read the book over and over again trying to understand why did you named it like that and most people who read it will also wonder. So, why is that?”

Hope’s mouth went dry again and her hands started to shaking slightly. She took a deep breath before saying anything.

“That was the chapter I struggled the most to write and remember because…” She saw Emory behind the camera walking up and down the small space looking at her. “It wasn’t bad at first, you know? Emory was at NYU and Scott had just arrived home and everything was fine for a while until I got pregnant. Everything just went downhill from there. I was extremely depressed and… and uh… suicidal. It was dark and I felt extremely lonely for months, even though I had Scott there for me.”

“Can you explain what happened? If I may ask, you didn’t specify what happened in the book,” Ava asked staring directly at Hope’s eyes.

“I, huh… I had a baby. Her name was Faith. The media didn’t knew I was pregnant, because I didn’t want them to. I wanted to have that experience for myself without tabloids on my face all the time or interviews or rumors. I wanted her to myself just for a little while, and I did.”

“For how long?”

“An hour and twenty-two minutes. She was perfect.” Hope said taking a deep breath. “She had dark hair just like I do, other than that, she was all her father. Her ears, her nose.” Hope stared at her shoes for a while trying to keep her breath under control. “She was very sick. Her bones were very fragile and breakable since before birth. She only lived for one single hour and twenty-two minutes and fifty-six seconds. I wasn’t lucid enough to make arrangements for her death or to choose what she would dress or her name during and before the birth so I had to choose later for the death certificate. I had faith that I wouldn’t take long until I could see her again after that… That’s why she was named like that, I just thought it was appropriate at the time.”

“That must be really tough to talk about that and have to relive that feeling.”

Hope thought for a moment. She still remembers how heavy her arms felt at every single second that passed. Remember of her daughter now it wasn’t as painful as it used to be anymore.

“No, not anymore.” Hope smiled through her blurred vision. “It took me a long time, but I finally feel like I can talk about without having an emotional breakdown. I wanted her so much and when we had to bury her was one of the hardest things I’ve done in my entire life. Wearing those black clothes didn’t felt right, I should have been breastfeeding my child, changing her diaper, or go to her room at least ten times during the night to check if she was breathing. I didn’t get to do any of these things with her, not once.” She looked at her heels and noticed a box of tissues that Ava was offering and gladly took one. “A coffin should never be that small.”

“How do you feel now, talking about it and having to relive all of that?”

“Like I can finally let her leave, so she can be happy. I don’t know- I just like to think that she’s happier there, of course, I would give anything to have her here with me. It’s just some comfort me to think that… I used to think that I was never meant to be her mother, that I didn’t deserve her. I used to think that my love for her wasn’t enough to make her stay. And that almost drove me mad.”

“How did you- how were you able to pull yourself from it?” Ava managed to say trying to keep her eyes on Hope.

“A lot of therapy, my son and Scott. He was there through all of it, being the strong one for both of us… I guess.”

“Before we finish this, I have one last question for you and I ask this as a friend, not an interviewer,” Ava let go of the cards in her hands and took a deep breath. “Are you happy?”

For Hope, it took a while to find an answer to that particular question. She had been unhappy an unfair amount of time, after everything she went she still should be melancholic, it should still hurt and she should still be troubled by it but right in this very second, all she could feel was calm.

“I guess, yes… It took me too long to be where I am right now and to feel confident enough to be me and to talk about my traumas without an immediate response. I am happy.” Hope nodded and smiled at herself. “I’m a survivor and I’m gonna keep on surviving.”

She didn’t quite register what happened after that. She faintly remembered Ava talking with her and hugging her so tightly after and then all the people running around and turning off lights and then she was in the dressing room with Emory sitting on the couch with her.

“You were really brave today,” he said and she smiled again, proud of herself.

“Thank you. I needed that, for you to be proud of me.”

He kissed her forehead softly and muttered an _I am_ at her. They both picked up their belongings and her assistant guide her outside.

“There’s someone wait on your car for you.” Her assistant said and opened the car door for her while Emory went to the passenger’s seat in the front. She took a look inside the car to see Scott and Cassie on the car seat. The little girl was passed out, probably exhausted from today’s activities.

“Did anyone order a Scott Lang with a side of Cassie?” he joked and Hope bit her lip trying to contain her smile. “Ready to go home?”

She held his hand and sat next to him.

“I couldn’t be more ready.”

**Author's Note:**

> Just a reminder that english is not my first language. You can find me on Twitter @julietsavvyer
> 
> Also thanks to AnneBridge for everything you've done for all these years and for putting up with me!


End file.
